[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 106 (Thursday, August 4, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1820
 
           WELFARE REFORM AND SUBSIDIES FOR THE TRUE VICTIMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Torres). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of June 10, 1994, and February 11, 1994, the gentleman from New 
York [Mr. Owens] is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished chairman of the 
Democratic Caucus, the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].


                          the health care plan

  Mr. HOYER. I thank my very good friend, the gentleman from New York 
[Mr. Owens], who plays such a critical role in Congress as one of the 
leaders on education issues and health care issues in this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise because I have heard of the Clinton plan, the 
Clinton plan, and the Clinton plan. The fact is the previous speakers 
would like it to be the Clinton plan, because they believe the Clinton 
plan is unpopular.
  However, what we have seen in poll after poll is the components of 
what the President has suggested are very popular in everybody's 
district, because Americans in fact want to see universal coverage. 
They want to see all Americans covered by health care.
  As the father of three daughters who have all attained the age of 22, 
I was very concerned that they would have health care coverage after 
they no longer were covered under their mother's and my insurance.
  Americans know that health care is not an option. Health care is an 
absolute necessity when you get sick and particularly when you have a 
child that is sick. You want to have health assurance and health 
insurance.
  Furthermore, Americans know that we need to have health insurance so 
that we can access not just critical care, not just going to the 
emergency room when one gets sick, the most expensive interface with 
the health care system. They know we also need preventive care, well-
baby care. They know that we need to take care of people before they 
get so sick that they have to be hospitalized in critical-care 
facilities which are the most expensive ways to treat illness.
  I have a great deal of respect for the gentleman who have spoken on 
the other side of the aisle, and I believe they do want to have a 
health care system that works for Americans. But I want to tell you 
very honestly that we are going to, in the weeks to come, go over the 
debate regarding Social Security in the middle 1930's; very little 
difference than the debate we heard today. We are going to go over the 
debate we heard in 1965 on Medicare.
  Now, we have had substantial administrations, President Reagan and 
President Bush. They can do it now; if they do not like Medicare, they 
can put in bills to repeal Medicare, to turn the clock back, when we 
had seniors who were without health assurance, who did not have access 
to the health care system, who, as senior citizens when they most 
needed health security, had none.
  I do not hear anybody saying, ``We ought to touch Social Security; it 
is a lousy system.'' In fact, it has taken millions and millions and 
millions of our senior citizens and provided for them a life of dignity 
and security, certainly not opulence, certainly not wealth, but has 
provided them with some security that they could reply on, that would 
always be there.
  Then in 1965 we adopted Medicare to make sure that they would have 
security.
  And now what the President is saying and what the Democratic 
leadership has said in the bill that is known as the Gephardt bill, 
``Look, the President put a plan on the table. It had certain promises 
contained in it; Every American would have a health care assurance that 
would always be there.'' That is not just a catch phrase. That is 
security for every American. But it is much more than that. It is also 
the concept of shared responsibility, to make sure that everybody, all 
250 million of us, participated in this assurance program, jointly 
taking responsibility, not only for ourselves but also joining with 
others to make sure that our community was a healthy community.

  Now, a healthy community is a community of a higher quality of life 
and a more competitive community.
  I heard words from the other side of the aisle like, ``expanded 
bureaucracy,'' and we agree, that was one of the concerns. And the 
gentlemen said, ``Oh, well, they have dumped the alliances. They are no 
longer there, but it is still the Clinton plan.'' In fact, the 
alliances were a central aspect, but the American public were in fact 
concerned, and many Members of this House were concerned. So we looked 
at that. We said, ``There is a better way.'' We have a Medicare system 
that now exists. We do not have to create a new bureaucracy. We do not 
have to create any more hires, any more complication.
  What we can do is make that accessible to some people and make sure 
that we have a more competitive private sector system that will compete 
so that we can keep costs down for individuals and families, because 
that is critical. That is an issue about average, hard-working, middle-
class Americans who make this country great.
  Now, those of us who are better off, we can afford perhaps health 
care, but only if we are millionaires and, frankly, multimillionaires 
can we have the assurance that we can afford any kind of health care, 
because it is so expensive when you get really sick.
  Furthermore, if you are poor, you participate, but you only 
participate when you get sick, go to an emergency room, and in the 
critical-care setting where it is very expensive, and you do not go for 
free. You may not pay, but, frankly, every hard-working American who 
either gets their insurance through their employer, which 9 out of 10 
do, or purchase it themselves, pay about 15 cents to 25 cents, there is 
a range, in additional premium dollars, an additional premium tax, if 
you will, so that they can pay to the providers for that uncompensated 
care. That is the care that the poor cannot pay for, and they are not 
in the system.
  I heard that word ``expanded bureaucracy''; in fact, the Gephardt 
bill provides that that will not be the case, that we will use existing 
structure.
  I heard that they do not want a Government takeover of the health 
care system. Again, that debate was exactly what we heard in Medicare. 
This is not, in fact, any kind of a takeover of the health care system. 
It is, in fact, a system in which we believe the private sector is 
going to participate and be very much a part of, and what we are 
talking about is allowing people to buy private insurance so that they 
will be assured when they get sick that they will be able to pay for 
the care that is given to them and to their families.
  And I heard that they do not want health care reform to come at the 
expense of anyone's job. We agree. We agree. That is why we have spent 
really thousands of hours trying to make sure that we have a system in 
which businesses, large and small, can participate.
  Over 66 percent of businesses now participate jointly with their 
employees in assuring health care coverage, and those 66 percent that 
are paying are subsidizing their competitors who do not. We need to 
have joint responsibility.
  We have talked a lot about responsibility. We need to take that 
responsibility, because very frankly, the employees of the business 
that does not have insurance, and 80 percent of the uninsured in 
America are in working families; one member at least in the family is 
working. These are not deadbeat Americans that some people say, ``Oh, 
well, they do not deserve help.'' These are hard-working people playing 
by the rules, and they cannot afford insurance because they do not have 
any system that helps them get it. So they are being subsidized because 
they get sick just like the rest of us, and they go to the hospital 
just like the rest of us. Somebody pays the bill.
  Who pays the bill? The 66 percent of the small businesses' employees 
who are in fact paying insurance, because the hospital bills are higher 
than they otherwise would be because everybody is not in the system.

                              {time}  1830

  Frankly, Mr. Speaker, what I did not hear were words like, ``We 
finally have a solution.''
  At the outset of this debate, many years ago, frankly, under 
Presidents Nixon and Truman, both Nixon and Truman, Democrat and 
Republican, recommended to the Congress--as the gentleman from New York 
[Mr. Owens] knows--substantially doing what we recommend today and what 
President Clinton has recommended and what we have changed but tried to 
keep the substance of, making sure that all Americans had health care 
coverage, private insurance that they could apply when they set sick.
  I did not hear the words like, ``Here is how health care costs can be 
fairly shared in our community.'' That is what insurance is all about. 
We know we are all not going to get sick, just like we know we are not 
all going to get into an automobile accident; so we pool our resources. 
An insurance pool is just that because we know one of us is going to 
get sick or one of us is going to get into an automobile accident and 
that that will place a real strain on us financially; but if we pool 
our resources, if we share the responsibility, we can accomplish the 
objective.
  Someone recently said, and I quote--it was a Republican who said it, 
as a matter of fact--``Republicans have the appetite but not the 
stomach for health care reform.'' The appetite but not the stomach.
  Now, it is nice to talk about health care assurance for all 
Americans, it is nice to talk about access. Frankly, people have access 
now. You can get into the health care system either through the 
emergency room of a hospital or into a doctor's office if you can 
afford it, and you can have access to insurance if you can pay for it. 
The critical component is how do we make sure that all of our family, 
all 250 million of us, have that assurance of health care security?
  This debate will proceed, and I very much appreciate the gentleman 
from New York [Mr. Owens] yielding to me. It is important that we act 
and that we act now. Americans are saying, by numbers of 70 to 80 
percent, they expect this Congress to address this question. They know 
it is not easy, and they do not want some system that changes what we 
have, the security that they have. But they know that this is a system 
that is costing too much, is having too many people not covered and is 
not as competitive as they want to see it.
  We are trying to adopt such a bill. We hope in the next few days we 
will do that. We are going to work hard toward that end. Americans 
expect us to do that, Americans want us to do that, and Americans 
deserve our best efforts to accomplish that objective.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] again 
for yielding this floor to me.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I am quite pleased to assist the gentleman in 
unraveling and clarifying the great partisan plot that is underway to 
confuse the American people about health care reform.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to discuss another subject. We heard before an 
accusation that health care reform has been moved too fast and that the 
American people are being rushed into this. But the process started 2 
years ago, and I have not seen a more deliberative process applied to 
any piece of legislation in the 12 years that I have been in the House 
of Representatives.
  This has been and continues to be a very deliberative process, large 
numbers of people and resources have been brought to bear in developing 
the legislation relating to health care from the Clinton plan all the 
way to the present plans being offered by the leadership of the other 
body and the leadership of this House.
  Mr. Speaker, there is another very serious problem which is not 
getting that kind of deliberative process, not benefitting from that 
kind of deliberative process. That is, the welfare reform process, the 
welfare reform proposals.
  I think we are being stampeded into the acceptance of legislation 
related to welfare reform. There is a need for much more deliberation 
on that.
  It is very unfortunate that some of the people who have come forward 
to serve as the experts on welfare reform have been people who have had 
no contact with human resources programs in the past. Some of the 
Members, former members of the Committee on Intelligence, have come 
forward as experts on welfare reform. Some members on the Committee on 
Appropriations have come forward as experts on welfare reform. On and 
on it goes.
  It seems some of the people who are most hostile toward poor people 
have put themselves forward as the experts on welfare reform. They are 
hostile to poor people, on the one hand. On the other hand, they are 
not hostile to waste and subsidy in Government.
  Now, here is the problem: I think the American people are concerned 
with welfare reform because they think it will end a great deal of 
waste in Government and they do not want to see the waste; they want to 
see people helped. Surveys and focus groups, all kinds of mechanisms, 
show that basically the American people want to see people helped who 
do need help but they do not want to see waste.
  It is very interesting how Members of Congress from all kinds of 
committees and all shades of the spectrum, conservative, 
neoconservative, liberal, everybody wants to move and move rapidly on 
welfare reform. And yet there are many other areas where there is a 
great deal of waste in Government that nobody is concerned with.
  I think it would be great, and I want to explain from the very 
beginning that I am not opposed to President Clinton's initiative on 
welfare reform. I think when he says we are going to end welfare as we 
know it and we are going to place emphasis on jobs to replace welfare, 
that he is moving in a direction with which I certainly agree.
  Now, I have no problem with putting greater emphasis on jobs and less 
emphasis on welfare. I will come back to that in a minute. But if you 
are concerned about waste in Government and you want to see our dollars 
spent most effectively, then we ought to be concerned with subsidy 
reform. We ought to ask ourselves the question: In how many ways are we 
subsidizing people? How many are we subsidizing? Americans, are we 
subsidizing businessmen, are we subsidizing farmers?
  It is one thing to help victims, and we do subsidize victims in order 
to help them, whether it is a victim of the economic system, a person 
who needs a job, does not have a job and unemployment insurance is 
there. If they are not employed and do not qualify for unemployment 
insurance, welfare is there to help the victim.
  If they are the victim of an earthquake, we have earthquake disaster 
relief funds to help. If they are a victim of a flood, we have relief 
to help. If they are a victim of a hurricane, we have hurricane relief.
  So we help victims. I think it is very much fitting and proper that 
Government should help victims of all kinds.
  But let us take a look at our other subsidies and even subsidies for 
victims. Welfare victims, people who are on welfare, are victims of an 
economic order that does not provide the jobs which are necessary. 
Either the jobs are not there which are necessary for the fathers who, 
if they had a job, would be able to support their children. I am all in 
favor of welfare reform which emphasizes a greater enforcement of child 
support payments. But we also ought to recognize that if the fathers do 
not have jobs, no matter how hard you try to cannot get them to make 
payments of money they do not have. Somewhere in welfare reform we 
ought to put in incentives for fathers who do not make payments, 
incentives built in so that we provide jobs ``for you on condition you 
make payments.'' Of course, if we provide a job, we will make certain 
that you make payments. But there is no discussion of providing jobs to 
fathers so that fathers will make the payments and take care of their 
children.
  Everything focuses on the mothers of children who are under-age, 
dependent children. But I am all in favor of a program which 
understands that the fathers are victims as well as mothers who want to 
go to work and cannot find jobs, they are victims. We need to help 
victims. That is what welfare is all about.
  Flood relief is all about helping victims, victims of floods who need 
help, and Government should help. But if we look at what we provide 
individuals who are victims of floods, we may find that it is far more 
than we provide individuals who happen to be victims of economic 
conditions, especially those people who have been victims of floods 2 
or 3 times.

                              {time}  1840

  They get low interest loans; they get all kinds of disaster relief 
aid. There are a number of things we do. Victims of earthquakes, some 
of whom live in the same areas that have been victims of earthquakes 
more than once, we give low interest loans to rebuild houses. As my 
colleagues know, large amounts of money are laid out to take care of 
victims of earthquakes or victims of hurricanes. If we examine some of 
the expenditures in the budget recently, in just the last 3 years we 
appropriated $8 billion for earthquake relief for the California 
earthquake.
  Again, I am all in favor of helping victims, but we ought to take a 
look at how much did each victim get. As my colleagues know, should we 
say there is a limit? Are we going to argue that welfare, people should 
be on welfare for 2 years and no more? And we should figure out what is 
the cost of being on welfare for 2 years. Is that the amount of money 
we are going to give to all victims whether they are victims of 
earthquakes, or victims of floods, or victims of hurricanes? Are we 
going to set a limit on what we give to victims, people who are victims 
of floods. Last year, the Midwest flood, we appropriated $6 billion, $6 
billion. Before that we had the hurricane in Florida. We appropriated 
$6 billion. I am not saying million; I am talking about billions of 
dollars to help victims.

  I am all in favor of helping victims. Why do we put the welfare 
victims in another category? I say to my colleagues, ``You may find, if 
you look at the cost per family and the cost per person, what we do to 
help victims of earthquakes, floods and hurricanes is far greater per 
individual and per family than we do for some of the victims of 
economic conditions which forces people onto welfare. That is something 
we ought to think about, but my main point does not relate to that 
because victims should be helped.
  We all agree that the Government, one of the roles of the Government, 
should be to come to the aid of people who are victims. There are some 
people who are not victims who are receiving continual subsidies from 
the Government, and, if we are going to have welfare reform, I think we 
ought to broaden it into subsidy reform and even put our emphasis 
there, deal with subsidy reform even before we deal with welfare reform 
because welfare, most of the people on welfare, are victims.
  Sixty-eight percent of the people on welfare are children who have no 
control over their fate. Sixty-eight percent are children. The people 
who are on subsidies, like the farmers home loan mortgage program, are 
not victims. The farmers who get subsidies for their grazing, and they 
graze their cattle, and the cattle get fat, and they sell them, and we 
pay large amounts of money for the meat that we have subsidized, they 
do not need subsidies; they are not victims. The farmers who are 
receiving subsidies now at this late date, the farm subsidy program has 
been going on for many, several, decades. We are subsidizing farmers to 
keep the price of certain foods up so that we pay twice. We pay as 
taxpayers on the subsidy, and then we pay a higher price for groceries, 
a higher price for food, as a result of the subsidies of the farmers.
  Farmers now constitute less than 3 percent of the population of the 
United States, as my colleagues know, so we are not subsidizing 
individuals. We are subsidizing farming corporations, agricultural 
corporations. it is big business. We are subsidizing big business and 
calling it farm subsidies. Then we say we need these farm subsidies in 
order to guarantee that America will always have farmers and never be 
in a position where we have our food supply jeopardized. Well, these 
are big businesses like any other big business, and why should we 
subsidize them in order to have them produce a product? Let them face 
competition. The farm subsidies are enormous, billions of dollars. It 
goes on, and on, and we have not weighed in to do anything about that.
  Farmers home loan mortgages, to go back to farmers for a minute, 
farmers home loan mortgages have been exposed as a massive racketeering 
enterprise. Do my colleagues hear what I am saying; a massive 
racketeering enterprise. On the front pages of the Washington Post 
several months ago there was a story which nobody questioned the facts. 
The facts were accepted as true, that $11.5 billion in loans, and I 
said $11.5 billion, not million, $11.5 billion in loans had been 
forgiven by the Department of Agriculture to farmers. These are farmers 
home loan mortgages. Eleven point five billion had been forgiven. What 
does it mean to forgive? It means that loans that had been loans before 
were transformed into gifts. They do not have to pay it back. The 
taxpayers' moneys have been given to the farmers, $11.5 billion over 
the last 5 years. I say to my colleagues, ``If you want to save money, 
then let's go after that kind of subsidy which is going to 
nonvictims.''

  These are loans on farms. Eleven point five billion was forgiven.
  In the same story, Mr. Speaker, the names of four millionaires were 
cited. They actually gave the names and the facts related to four 
millionaires who were farmers on the side. They had other businesses, 
but they were farmers, and those four millionaires had not repaid, had 
not made payments on their loans for up to 5--from 5 to 10 years. One 
had not made a payment on his loan in 10 years. One of the individuals 
cited, one of the millionaires cited, was also on a board which decided 
on whether or not credit would be extended to farmers who had these 
loans on an actual board. They had been appointed by the previous 
administration under Mr. Bush.
  So her is a case where we had massive amounts of subsidies and 
massive amounts of waste. It was all exposed on the front pages of the 
Washington Post, and not a single committee of Congress has held a 
hearing on it. I heard talk in the elevator shortly after the story was 
broken by the Washington Post. A person on the Committee on Agriculture 
said, ``We are going to have hearings on that. We are going to deal 
with that.'' I have not seen any hearings held on the racketeering 
enterprise called the farmers hole loan mortgages. The subsidies that 
farmers receive may be more legal, more legitimate. We may not be 
giving away money in such a blatant way. But farmers also receive that. 
Farmers who have cattle, or ranches they call them, out West, they 
graze on Government land, and they get the grazing rights on the land 
for less than half of what they pay on private land. We are subsidizing 
the farmers to fatten their cattle that they then sell to us. Massive 
amounts of money could be raised if we raised the fee on Government 
land for the farmers to graze.
  Miners out west receive enormous subsidies by having land for mining 
sold to them at very low prices. Even gold miners get very low prices, 
massive subsidies, and of course some other subsidies that we are more 
familiar with, which are more universal, they do not just cover the 
farm territories, the West and the Far West, they cover the whole 
country.
  That is the S&L subsidy, subsidies that went to savings and loan 
banks that failed. We hear a lot today about Whitewater. Whitewater is 
shallow water compared to Silverado. Whitewater is all about an S&L 
that failed, that had less than a half a billion dollars, or did it 
have a hundred million? I do not even think it was a hundred million. 
The bank that failed in that case did not even have a hundred million. 
Silverado was in the billion dollar category. Silverado was a situation 
where the board of the bank, Silverado Bank, agreed to have a loan 
given to purchase a building in Denver, and the building was worth $13 
million, but the board agreed to loan the people who were purchasing 
the building $26 million, twice as much as was needed, on condition 
that the person deposited the extra money in the Silverado Bank.
  As my colleagues know, if ever there was a racketeering enterprise, 
if ever that was a deal that the bank made with the lender to benefit 
the bank, all of which is illegal, and when this bank, of course, 
making deals like that went under, the American people were left 
holding the bag because we insure the deposits of all the people who 
deposit their money in the Silverado Bank.

                              {time}  1850

  Silverado made many deals like that, so it went broke to the tune of 
more than $1 billion. This is what happened to a young man named Bush, 
the son of George Bush, Neal Bush. He sat on the board of Silverado. 
That was big money, far bigger than Whitewater. But Democrats were so 
kind and never had hearings which really dealt with Silverado and the 
kind of stealing, racketeering, that went on in the case of the 
Silverado Bank.
  But we subsidized that. Taxpayers, we subsidize the banks. We stand 
behind the deposits, and we have seen in the savings and loan 
situations when they go under, the insurance that they pay, the 
depositors' insurance, is quickly, when you have massive bankruptcies, 
is quickly used up. We then dip into the taxpayers' till. It is off 
budget, so there is not much discussion about it, but we have 
subsidized the failed savings and loans to the tune of more than a 
quarter of a trillion dollars, $250 billion, and they keep the figures 
very confused and very secret. But Stanford University predicts when it 
is all over, the savings and loans subsidies will cost the taxpayers 
$500 billion. That is half a trillion dollars. That is conservative 
figure from Stanford University.
  So I am saying we are subsidizing some of the richest people in 
America. We ought to look at all of these subsidies. Not welfare 
reform, but we ought to talk about subsidy reform, and talk about how 
we can save money by making sure that everything we subsidize as 
taxpayers is legitimate, that everything is not exploited by 
racketeering enterprises that we subsidize. We ought to take a look at 
that. And we ought to take a look at victims and understand that while 
we want to help victims, we want to be just and fair and try to help 
victims equally, and not be hostile toward poor people who are on 
welfare. Just because they are poor and do not have lawyers and 
lobbyists, we are going to go after them with a vengeance and have 
Congress stampeded into a welfare reform bill.
  As I said before, I do not like the way we are being stampeded and 
moving too fast toward welfare reform. We are developing a lot of 
experts who are not experts, who are too hostile toward poor people. I 
do favor President Clinton's basic approach that we are going to give 
people jobs, instead of welfare. But I want the jobs to be real jobs.
  I think America's problems as it goes into the new world order can be 
very much resolved. We can solve a lot of our problems by putting a 
greater emphasis on jobs and the role of the Government to create jobs, 
a major role of the U.S. Government, the Federal Government. It should 
be the creation of jobs. You create jobs two ways: You stimulate the 
economy in very concrete kinds of ways, to create opportunities for 
private enterprise to create the jobs, or you provide direct jobs as a 
last resort.
  I think if you handle the economy properly, accept the major role of 
the Government to stimulate the economy, we would create 75 percent of 
the jobs that need to be created through stimulus packages, the kind 
the President had on the table last year, stimulus packages which would 
lead to contracts going out to private enterprises to build the roads, 
to build the schools, to do all the things that have to be done.
  There is a lot of work to be done. There is a lot of work to be done 
in America right now, for the next decade. There is still a lot of work 
to be done. We can adopt a full employment policy, providing work for 
everybody, and we would not have to worry about welfare, except for the 
very feeble and the very old and people who could not work. We would 
not have to talk about replacing welfare with real jobs. The economy 
would do it for us. It would be stimulated and we could go forward. I 
am all in favor of that portion of the proposed welfare reform. Let us 
have jobs, real jobs.
  When I first came to Congress, the first bill I put in was a bill 
which called for a constitutional amendment to guarantee a job 
opportunity to every American who want to work. A constitutional 
amendment to guarantee a job opportunity to every American who wants to 
work.
  I was told that is pie in the sky, it is naive, it is left wing, et 
cetera. You know, it is nothing new. The New Deal Bill of Rights 
Roosevelt had already proposed before. So I cannot claim it as a new 
and creative idea, to provide jobs and to have the society have a 
responsibility to provide jobs. It is not a new idea. In fact, it is 
very closely related to the very fundamental basis of our civilization.
  Civilization is based on a premise that individuals out there in the 
jungle have something to gain by uniting with other individuals and 
living by a certain code. We create societies, we create a civilization 
by accepting certain rules, certain codes, certain regulations, and not 
living by the survival of the fittest doctrine. That is, you go into 
the jungle and you are hungry, somebody else has a piece of meat, you 
go ahead and take it. We have gone beyond that. You live in a civilized 
society and say it is not right to take things from people. There is an 
assumption that the society we create is going to be superior to the 
jungle. The society we create is going to be superior to the jungle. If 
it is going to be superior, then we always have to make the assumption 
that that society is going to provide a way, some way, for every 
individual to earn a living, to be able to earn income, to be able to 
survive.

  The society owes it to an individual to provide a way to earn a 
living. That is basic. So when we say we are going to replace welfare 
with jobs, yes, jobs is where we should have been all the time. But let 
us have real jobs. When we say we are going to replace welfare with 
jobs, yes, there is plenty of work to be done. So we can do that, and 
we understand that the work to be done is not a job until somebody 
agrees to pay for it.
  You have to have a way to pay for it. The Government must decide it 
wants to repair roads and bridges. The Government must decide that it 
wants to build schools. The Government must decide it wants to really 
clean up all the toxic waste sites across the country, give out 
contracts to private enterprise. It is all part of the economy.
  As we go into the new world order, it is different from the old world 
order in one basic respect: We do not have the threat of an evil 
empire. We do not have the threat of another superpower. We do not live 
under the cloud of a nuclear war. So we do not have to spend tremendous 
amounts of money, half of our Federal budget, on defense and protection 
from war, vehicles and instruments to make war.
  That is the old world order. You do not have to do that. You do not 
have to spend that kind of money. If we dedicate ourself to the 
proposition that in the new world order the Federal Government will 
spend as much money over the next 10 years on creating jobs and 
stimulating the economy as it did on defense in the last 10 years, then 
you would have a transformation of American society. You would not have 
a welfare problem of any mignitude. You would end most of the problems 
relating to drugs and alcohol and a number of problems that very 
desperate people get into because they see no future. They have no way 
to survive with dignity, and we create problems by not allowing them an 
opportunity to earn an income, an opportunity to survive with dignity.
  I do not see why we could not adopt a proposition that the new world 
order is going to provide jobs for everybody. I do not see why we could 
not have the proposition that we are going to spend as much to create 
jobs. Not all at once, I am not a radical. I am a very conservative 
guy. I think we ought to have a policy of spending down on defense, and 
as we spend down on defense, the same amount of money should be spent 
up on economic stimulus. You do not need all those additional weapons 
that are in the pipeline. We do not need to keep paying for overseas 
bases in Germany and Japan. We do not need all that anymore. Spend it 
down put it into a stimulus package, spend it up, and you will create 
more jobs.
  Yes, the defense effort did create jobs. The defense effort helped 
the economy. It was a great stimulus. Many people argue that we should 
keep it going because it stimulutes the economy. Localities want their 
plants. But reasonable human beings cannot argue that we should create 
more weapons of war in order to stimulate the economy. We cannot stay 
with that argument very long. Let us do work that has to be done, which 
is part of the agenda of the new world order. We need more schools. We 
need more equipment in those schools. We need more hospitals. We need a 
lot of things that can be created, supported, at the same time we 
stimulate the economy to create jobs.

                              {time}  1900

  So let us replace welfare with real jobs. And to do that, we are 
going to have to spend some money.
  The basic question to ask about all the welfare reform bills that are 
being proposed, and there are a number of them being proposed, is, will 
there be real job opportunities for the families we expect to work? 
Will we make work pay by creating jobs that leave families better off 
than they were on AFDC and really help to lift the children and the 
families out of poverty?
  We have just heard a long argument tonight, one of many series of 
discussions on health care reform. Health care reform is absolutely 
necessary if you are going to have a new world order providing jobs for 
people and the jobs are going to be adequate. An adequate job means it 
has to pay a salary which allows a person to live decently and at the 
same time it has to have at least one component of a benefits package. 
It must have health care. We must have health care along with a salary 
which meets the needs of a family so providing work does not mean a new 
slavery.
  There are some people who have said, well, do not worry about it; if 
you cannot find a job, make them work off their grants. Let them go out 
and dig ditches. Make them work it off.
  Well, making them work it off at less than minimum wage and without 
health benefits means a new slavery. We are going to become government 
slave owners. We are going to have the largest plantation the world has 
ever seen by forcing people to work at less than minimum wage and 
without health benefits.
  That is what we are proposing when we say it does not matter, does 
not matter whether they can find a job or not. We will make them work 
off their welfare grant.
  No, we want real jobs. Let us replace welfare with real jobs. Let us 
save all the money we can save by getting rid of the subsidies that go 
to the rich, the farmers, the lawyers, the grazing, the mining, the 
S&L's. Let us stop being overly generous with flood victims, earthquake 
victims, hurricane victims, especially the second time, if they build a 
house near the water one time and it gets flooded, do not rebuild it a 
second time with taxpayer money. Let us do the things that are 
necessary to transfer the money to the place where it is needed.
  And where it is needed most is in the area of job stimulation, a 
stimulus package which creates jobs, real jobs. All of America would 
benefit, and we could hold our heads up high and understand that we 
have been fair. We have been humane. We lived up to the part of the 
Constitution which requires us to promote the general welfare.
  Promoting the general welfare means promoting the general welfare for 
everybody.
  I am going to close with a quote from an editorial in the New York 
Times called ``Common Sense on Welfare.'' What they are doing in this 
editorial is commenting on recent polls that have been taken in 
relation to the welfare problem and the welfare reform proposals.
  What they are saying is that Congress may be out of step and some of 
the head hunters, some of the intensely angry people who are going 
after welfare people in a hostile way are out of step with the American 
people, that part of the reason Congress is held in such low esteem may 
be the fact that Congress refuses to go after the people with the 
Farmers Home Loan mortgages, 11.5 billion dollars' worth of waste. We 
do not go after that. We come after the welfare recipients with a great 
deal of hostility.
  Let me read from the New York Times editorial. They are commenting on 
what these polls have shown:

       In fact, the public is sympathetic to major components of 
     the serious welfare reform proposals now being considered. 
     Majorities in the range of 80 percent to 90 percent of the 
     public favor subsidizing child care for welfare mothers who 
     go to work and guaranteeing that those who leave welfare do 
     not lose their health insurance.

  Let me repeat that, 80 to 90 percent of the American people favor 
subsidizing child care for welfare mothers who go to work and 
guaranteeing that those who leave welfare do not lose their health 
insurance.
  To continue, ``Majorities favor a 2-year limit on welfare benefits.'' 
A 2-year limit on welfare benefits is favored by the majority of the 
American people. Research shows that most welfare recipients only stay 
on 2 years anyhow. Two years is not a bad limit, if you do not apply it 
too arbitrarily, because most welfare recipients do not stay on any 
more than 2 years.
  ``And opinion is also unanimous in favoring tougher measures to 
collect child support from absentee fathers.'' We are going to collect 
child support from absentee. We are all in favor of that, but the 
absentee fathers need jobs. We ought to concern ourselves with 
stimulating the economy to provide jobs and maybe have incentives to 
say to absentee fathers, here is a job for those who have not been 
paying the child support payments and we are going to collect from you 
when you get this job, but it is incentive to go to work. And I assure 
you, most of the absentee fathers would respond by coming in to get the 
jobs.
  I continue to quote from the New York Times editorial:

       But Americans are also sympathetic to expanded education 
     and job training benefits for welfare recipients.

  Americans are also sympathetic to expanded education and job training 
benefits:

       A large majority favor crating public service jobs for 
     welfare recipients who cannot find work elsewhere. The public 
     worries about the impact of time-limited welfare on children.

  That 2-year rule, they support on the one hand. On the other hand, 
they do not want to see children suffer as a result of kicking somebody 
off welfare after 2 years and throwing the children into a situation 
where they cannot find housing on or be fair:

       The public worries about the impact of time limited-welfare 
     on children. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the 
     government spends too little on poor children.

  Nearly two-thirds of Americans say that the Government spends too 
little, too little on children, on poor children:

       As the pollsters said in their report, voters want welfare 
     reform aimed at ``promoting work and strengthening 
     families.'' They will ``support new programs and even some 
     new spending toward these ends, provided they see personal 
     responsibility and accountability being encouraged.''

  I want to repeat. The public says that they will support new programs 
and even some new spending toward these ends, provided they see 
personal responsibility and accountability being encouraged:

       The public is angry about the welfare system but when it 
     comes to finding solutions, its emphasis is on practicality 
     and concern for poor children.

  The public is angry about the welfare system but when it comes to 
finding solutions, its emphasis is on practicality and concern for poor 
children:

       Welfare reformers would do well to make the public's 
     emphasis their own emphasis.

  By implication, Congress would do well to listen to the public and 
instead of acting like mad dogs or sharks in a feeding frenzy, blindly 
tearing away at the fabric of the welfare program to get at the poor, 
Congress should look at other subsidies, broaden our concern with 
subsidies, reform all subsidies at the same time we reform welfare, and 
provide what is needed to take care of poor children and to provide the 
job training and, most of all, to stimulate the economy so that we 
crate jobs.
  Our civilization is dependent on our ability to guarantee work for 
everybody who wants to work, not to guarantee the best possible job or 
the job everybody wants but a job where a person can make a living, 
where a family can be fed.
  The new world order ought to adopt that as a major goal. The new 
world order ought to be willing to spend as much on creating the jobs, 
stimulating the economy, as we have spent in the last 10 years on 
defense. The new world order ought to take responsibility for seeing to 
it that government and society is always superior to the jungle. What 
we have done is thrown certain categories of people into the jungle. 
When you have high unemployment, no way to get a job, then you are 
saying, you are out there in the jungle by yourself. You might as well 
act the way people act in the jungle or the way animals act in the 
jungle, because we as a society are taking no responsibility for trying 
to provide an opportunity, not to a handout, but an opportunity to earn 
a living, an opportunity to make income, and an opportunity to take 
care of a family.

                              {time}  1910

  Mr. Speaker, that is what welfare reform should strive to do. That is 
what our whole society ought to consider. We want to create maximum 
opportunity for everybody to earn a living. All the other problems will 
begin to fall in place, in large part, if we provide a means to earn a 
living for every person who wants to work.

                          ____________________